US youth turning increasingly towards online news

02/10/2012

The results of the latest Pew research report into news consumption in the US has found that young people are turning towards online news and away from TV news.

TV does remain the most popular source of news, but the people watching are getting older, it seems. The report explained, "Only about a third (34 per cent) of those younger than 30 say they watched TV news yesterday; in 2006, nearly half of young people (49 per cent) said they watched TV news the prior day."

These results suggest a dramatic change in the way people are consuming news. They are spending more time looking at their mobiles and their computer screens and less time looking at their TV screens.

Local news consumption is also changing among young Americans, with only 28 per cent aged between 18 and 29 claiming that they watched local TV news regularly. This compared with 42 per cent in 2006. In fact, more and more young people are turning to social networking sits, like twitter for their daily dose of news.

Overall, consumption of printed newspapers is also falling quite dramatically in the US. The Pew study found that 23 per cent of people said they had read a printed newspaper the day before, down from almost 50 per cent in 2000.

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